Transfiguration

Who is Jesus? Mark is one of the accounts of Jesus Christ that we have that is presenting, really, the suffering servant. That's one of the major themes of Mark. And Mark is writing, we believe, with Peter being the eyewitness that is helping Mark walk through the account. And to get us where we are in our text, because this is a significant moment, the transfiguration of Jesus Christ, I want to kind of give a little bit of a synopsis for those who have not been with us. What we do is we choose a book and we study it in its entirety, walking section by section. And it's important to kind of capture the context. So let's do a brief summary just to make sure we're all remembering where we've been and how we have gotten here in Mark. If you notice, if you turn to the Gospel of Mark, that is, well, if you're looking in your pew Bible, it would be page 1027. It begins, in the beginning, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Now the suffering servant is, is usually understood to be the primary theme, but that Son of God language is, is throughout the Gospel of Mark. And we'll see what that's significant here in a moment. We have the introduction of John the Baptist. We have the baptism of Jesus, the temptation of Jesus, the preparation of his ministry. We then see him teaching with great authority, healing the sick, healing the lame. He's doing a lot of wondrous works, and people are wanting to come to him, and a great crowd is gathering. And then there's a significant turn in his ministry. There's a man who's brought with his four friends, a paralytic, and instead of healing him immediately, Jesus says, your sins are forgiven. This is a significant change, or a significant contribution to the, the growing interest and, and, and, and intensity of his ministry. Because here he's, he's doing something only God does. And that's recognized by the scribes. He's not just a wonder worker. He's God who has come to forgive sins. And then he's, he's with the, the tax collectors. He's even with sinners. He's inviting sinners to be forgiven. He goes all the way into the land of the Gentiles on a sea voyage just to heal one man who was demon possessed. He then feeds 5,000 men and their family with just a few loaves and there was many leftovers. He teaches what truly makes us unclean, it's the sin that comes from within. He then feeds 4,000 Gentiles with just a few loaves and fishes with plenty of leftovers. As we get to where we are in Mark now, We're in chapter nine, but if you look at chapter 822, what we looked at last week, Jesus healed a blind man in 822, and if you just flip over very quickly to the end of chapter 10, Jesus heals a blind man. Those two healings are meant to be bookends for this section. We're in a different kind of section now, and we call it the great disciple discourse. He's teaching his disciples to be ready for what's coming. What follows is a triumphal entry. He's preparing his disciples to be ready that he's going to die for their sins and then rise again. They've had a very difficult time grasping who Jesus really is. Last week he asked, who do you say that I am? You're the Christ? Well, good, that's right. But then they could not accept that he was the Christ who was going to die and suffer many things. And we'll see this morning that they continue to have a difficult time with this. I believe those two sections of healing on both ends of someone blind, Jesus is trying to help us see, as Ben just prayed, that he would help us see. We need help seeing who Jesus is. That's kind of the eye doctor, right? You go to the eye doctor when things are blurry. You can tell, like maybe you have a headache. Things just aren't as clear as they used to be, and so what does he do? He drops those different lenses in front of you, and you gotta figure out, like, I feel like I might get it wrong sometimes. I'm afraid I might say the wrong, that's it. But he's dropping it down, and he's trying to do is give you a lens to help you see clearly. That's what Jesus is doing, but it's not for just our physical eyes. He's trying to fix our hearts. He's helping us see him as he truly is in his glory and to see us in our sin so that we might see him as the one who died to truly know him. He's trying to give us a new lens, a new heart, a new way of seeing him because we are naturally blind. So this morning, we're seeking to see Jesus as he is. And that's exactly what Jesus does in this revelation in chapter 9, the transfiguration. This is a unique story. There's nothing like it in other religions. You know, some have tried to compare it to like a Greek god-man, but, but this is a very unique story for Christ, from the, from God himself to help us see who he is. We'll learn a number of things about Jesus. The first thing we're going to see is Jesus is risen in glory. Jesus is risen in glory. Let's look at verse two. And after six days, this is after six days of this confrontation and declaration of who Jesus is, that he must die and rise again, and that we must deny ourselves, carry a cross, and follow him. After six days, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves, and he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could ever bleach them." I believe here what Jesus is, he's transformed into the image he's going to have, the nature he's going to have when he's risen. And it's not a new nature. It's the nature he's always had. Remember, he's added to himself our human nature. That's why he looks like a human. He's added our human nature. He's actually revealing himself in the glory and the purity he naturally has as the Son of God. Notice the specific details that are very clear here. Six days, three men, up on a high mountain, It very much sounds like an eyewitness report because I believe Peter is telling Mark about this. So there's these three men. We call this the inner circle of the disciples. These three of the 12 seem to have more access to Jesus than the others. Something amazing happens. It's translated a transfiguration. It could be transformation. The word we get for metamorphosis comes from the Greek here. It's almost transliterated in that way. Kind of like when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, a change of appearance in every way has taken place. This word is used four times in Scripture. Here in Mark, and then in Matthew 17, the other account of the transfiguration. Then it's used in Romans 12. We transformed. your minds. Let your minds be transformed. There needs to be a change in the way we think and live and desire, based upon everything Paul has said in Romans 1 through 11. And then I believe that the text Ben was praying from, or through, 2 Corinthians 3.18. We behold God's glory. And because we're beholding God's glory, we're being transformed into the image of God. Seeing him makes us more like him after the resurrection. You see, there's a change. But our focus right now is on how the disciples, they're seeing Jesus change into a glorious state. He's white. It represents his glory. It represents his purity. Nothing like it could ever be seen. No bleach could ever create such a scene. There's a few pages of scriptures that we could look to, to help inform what's going on here. In John chapter 1, in his prologue, he declares, the Word became flesh. The Creator God. He took upon himself humanity. So as the disciples have seen Jesus for these last three years, they've been seeing him as a man, because that's what he is. But that's not all he is. The Word that was glorious before the Incarnation. The Word that was pure and perfect before the Incarnation. The Word that was high and, and exalted and, and true and pure before the Incarnation. He has now appeared as He is as God. As He will be in the Resurrection. We can look to Philippians 2. He who did not see the glory of God as something to be grasped. He added to himself human nature. Or in John's account of Jesus' prayer in John 17, Jesus prays, glorify me with the glory I had with you before the world began. What the disciples are simply seeing is what Jesus is going to look like in his glorified human state after the resurrection. That they're getting a preview of his resurrection so that they're prepared when he dies to not falter, do not deny him, but remain faithful. So we can ask simply from this passage of the transfiguration, who is Jesus? He's a glorious God who's perfectly pure. He's not just a man. There's something very unique about him. And as we continue to look at who Jesus is, that gets fleshed out. The second thing we see about Jesus is that he is the promised Messiah. He is the promised Messiah. Look at verse four. And there appeared to them Elijah and Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. Now, it would be fantastic if we actually had the knowledge of what they're talking about. All of a sudden, Jesus is appearing up on this high mountain in this glorious state, and then two men who have not been seen walking on earth for hundreds of years appear with Jesus at this moment, and they're conversing. Now, what they're talking about isn't what's so important. It's the fact that they're there to reveal something. Well, I want to point out that the two men, Moses and Elijah, they're both prophets. They both themselves actually had a certain amount of glory. Remember when Moses comes down off Mount Sinai? His face shined with glory, but yet it was a shining that faded as he walked away from the presence of God. He was changing the glory. He was changing this glorious state in the presence of God, but when he walked away, it faded. It wasn't permanent. And Elijah, he didn't die. He was taken up into glory. They're also both recognized with significant mountaintop experiences with God. Moses at Mount Sinai, Elijah at Horeb. This event is actually very much like the Moses account on Mount Sinai. Moses ascended to the mountain after the exodus, after the deliverance. It took six days for Moses to ascend to the top of Mount Sinai. The glory of God was presented there in a cloud, and God spoke. One of the things that God spoke to Moses, we know from Deuteronomy 18, we looked at this last week, and God promised Moses there will be another prophet. He will be like you, he'll be the final prophet, he'll be the perfect prophet. And one of the things he challenges the people of Israel to do is listen to him. I'm going to send another prophet like Moses. Listen to him. And that's exactly what God says about Jesus. Listen to him. The prophets are there to help us to see that Jesus is the fulfillment of all Moses and Elijah represent. He's the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. Everything God has promised so far, Jesus is the fulfillment of. All the way back to Genesis 3.15. When God said to, to the serpent, I'm the woman, she's going to have a child, and there's going to be enmity between the two of you, and in the child he is going to crush your head. I am going to do a great work that's going to change the, the consequences of the, of your sin. I'm going to bring you blessing. We can see how God has made so many promises that there will be a child born who will be the perfect king, the perfect prophet, the perfect priest, and now Jesus is the fulfillment of all that. It should be already clear, Moses and Elijah, they're not pure white. They're just there with Jesus. They're not like Jesus. They're there to give testimony of Him. And so I want to point out here, here we see a great event. All right, an event takes place. Jesus is in control of everything happening here. He's taken them up to the mountain, he's revealed himself in glory, he's invited Moses and Elijah to stand next to him, all so they can see what's going on. He's in control of helping them see him as he is. Now there's an event, and then there's interpretation. And you have to have both. For example, if we didn't have the Word of God to tell us why Jesus died on the cross, it wouldn't carry the significance and meaning for us. We have to have God's event and then the interpretation of that event. The right interpretation of what happened is very important. That leads us to what Peter says next. And Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi. It is good that we are here. All right, Peter is at least halfway right. At least he can recognize this is good. Jesus has brought us up on the mountain. We've seen something unique. There's Moses and Elijah. What could be better than here, our rabbi, with the two great rabbis of old, and this is just encouraging. Thanks, Jesus, this is good. It's good to be here. All right, Peter just should have come to a full stop. Let us make three tents. Okay, there's nothing wrong with tents in and of themselves. What seems to be symbolic here is that maybe he's thinking of the Feast of Booze. Maybe he's here thinking let's set up something permanent so that we can have this day forever. Notice, and remember, if Peter is here telling Mark how to write the gospel, One for you and one for Moses, one for Elijah. Three tents, one for each. Look at verse six. If Peter's here telling Mark how to write the gospel, we have this kind of narration. For he did not know what to say. Well, that's when you really want to talk. For they were terrified. I mean, this would be terrifying. They've been slow to see. They've been slow to learn. And now they've come, and Jesus is appearing in this glorious state they haven't seen before. He's with two men who haven't been walking on the earth for hundreds of years, and they're terrified. So Peter says, let's build everybody a tent. Now, it's obvious Peter's missing the point. And this is what's really fantastic and unique about the Bible is that the men who are the ones carrying out, they reveal how slow they are. They reveal their own problems. Peter is a man who just, he speaks without thinking too often. Here, he didn't know what to say, so let's say something. Peter is still thinking with the same problem Jesus just rebuked him for in 8.33. Remember, Jesus tells him that the Son of Man must suffer many things. He must die and then rise again. And Jesus turns and rebukes him and says, get behind me, Satan. You are setting your mind on the things of man, not God. Peter sees this grand vision from God, given to him by God, and he interprets it in a way that shows he still has his mindset on things of man. Let's set up something permanent. Let's, let's, let's establish God's kingdom right now. Let's, let's, let's bring in the tents. Let's have everybody stay and let's do it right here without the suffering. He still hasn't gotten it. He wants to bring a permanence to this vision that avoids the suffering. I wonder if there's something here that we could be challenged by. How much do we set our mind on the things of man and on the things of God? How much are we preoccupied with confirming and making sure we have comfort? How much are we making sure we have a casualness to everything that's comfortable, rather than really pursuing the things of God? It's amazing. What Christ is preparing Peter to do is to die like him. He will die on a cross. What he's preparing Peter to do is to be a spokesperson who's going to turn and proclaim the gospel very boldly and be persecuted for it. He's going to see the value of suffering, that he has the honor of suffering with Christ, for Christ. Because Christ died once and for all for his sins. Here we see Peter hasn't gotten it yet. He wants to set something up permanent, right here, And that's not according to the will of God. There's nothing wrong with tense. He's not saying, let's go do some kind of gross sin. He's just trying to do something God isn't intending to do at this moment. Some of those dangerous sin isn't things God calls sin clearly in Scripture. Right? We can call, you know, adultery, Stealing. Cheating. It's easy to call those things sins. But sometimes we need to be careful of the sins that, they aren't gross sins. They aren't sins called out in Scripture that way, but it's just saying, I want to establish my will over your will, God. That's what Peter is doing here. The third point. We've seen Jesus is the glorious risen Savior. He is the promised Savior. And now we see Jesus is the only Son of God. Since Peter has had the wrong interpretation, the Father speaks to give the right interpretation. A cloud overshadowed them. Presence of a cloud is significant. How did God reveal himself in the Exodus? A cloud by day? Fire by night? A cloud oftentimes represents the Shekinah glory of God. Remember, Jesus is ascended up into the clouds. It, it represents oftentimes the very presence of God. I think there might be something here, like, all right, if you want to build tents to make sure there's a covering, no, I'm going to overshadow you with my presence. I'm the one who brings about my presence. I am here, Peter. Stop talking. Let me tell you what's going on. And a voice came. out of the cloud. In case we wondered if this is God's presence, now it's very confirmed. God is speaking. What does He say? This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him. This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him. Now we ask, who's speaking? I've said it's God, but we actually have to be a little more precise than that. It's the Father. When God says, this is my son, it's the Father specifically speaking, and he's not saying this for the son's sake. He's saying it for the disciples. Again, if we go back to the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, he introduces it as the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. At baptism, Mark records the Father saying, you are my beloved son. And then there's a number of, of, of instances where a demon will say you're the son of the Most High, but, but rarely does, Jesus never mentions himself as a son of God. He calls himself the son of man, in reference to his authority. And then there's that climactic ending on the lips of the Gentile Roman centurion when Christ dies. Surely this is the Son of God. Here the disciples should have already come to that conclusion. But the Father has to speak in a way that makes it very clear, this is my beloved Son. The Father and the Son, they've coexisted forever. They have a mutual dependency. There's an interdependency. You can't be a father of the Son, you can't be a son of the Father. We see here the Trinity being introduced in the first two persons. They're perfectly united. As father and son, they have the same nature. You see distinction. Because the father is not the son, and the son is not the father. The son has always been with the father, but now he has come down to be like us, so that he can bring us back up to the father. If you have questions about the Trinity, Wednesday night we're talking about it at my house. Come talk to me about that later, if you're interested. Notice, it's important what happens. Suddenly, verse 8, looking around, there's only Jesus. So if there's any question about who is Jesus' son, it's only Jesus. Moses was pointing towards Jesus. Elijah was pointing towards Jesus. They, they were prophets. They had a very honorable position. They had a very specific role. But they're not the Son of God. Jesus alone is the Son of God. They should see here, He alone has this unique, glorious position. He is to be listened to above all else. As we look at Mark, he's always pressing in a few things. One, Who is Jesus so we can see him? Two, how do we respond? Well, here we have the very voice of God giving the instruction and exhortation, listen. Listen. I think we all just need to acknowledge listening is hard. You might be feeling that right now. I mean, think about how our minds have easily been distracted from 10.30 till now. I knew I was gonna make this point, and I still got distracted while we were singing songs. Yeah, how hard it is to lose attention. How easy it is to get distracted and not show clear, focused listening. A man named Warada makes the observation that teaching in schools, they really focus on reading and writing, but they do very little to teach speaking and listening. The most important communication, the communication we do most of all, it's really hard to learn to be a good listener. Some people are better than others, but listening is very difficult. I don't, I don't say how often have you been distracted while, while we've been thinking of the things of God. To shame you, I just want to point out, listening is hard. It requires showing honor to someone to listen. Deference. There's a submission that takes place when you're listening to, to say, what they're saying is more important than what I want to say. What they're thinking is more important than what I want to think about. Listening is really hard work. We actually try to train listening is the way we order the worship service. The call to worship, God speaks first. So that we're listening during that call to worship. God speaks first to invite us into His worship. I become prepared to hear that call to worship because that's one of the most important things you'll, you'll hear in the morning. God inviting you into His presence. We, we read God's Word. We, we sing God's Word. We pray God's Word. We, we proclaim it. And the sermon is intentionally in the middle to show that it's, it is the, the, the high point of the service in the sense that we're thinking about these, these texts, what God has said clearly and thoroughly. And then the last word you'll hear is the benediction. A good word to leave on. a good word to meditate upon as we go and live in this world that's dark, that doesn't have the truth, that is full of lies, so that we keep listening to God. Disciples, listen. There's a desire to be taught. There's a recognition that God knows things we don't know. God knows me better than I know me. That God can reveal Himself in a way that I can't discover Him. We must learn to listen. A few questions to ask. Who do you listen to most? Who do you listen to most? Is it some voice in your own mind and the things you like to be entertained by? Is it somebody outside of you, a friend, a parent, a child, someone whose voice constantly is feeding something that influences you? Do we look above? Do we seek to listen to God? Here's what you need to understand. Okay, this is a unique moment where God is speaking audibly while Jesus glorified from a cloud, but I want to make it very clear, God has not stopped speaking. Why John read earlier from 2 Peter 1, the word we have here is more sure than that very moment. God's Word is alive. It's powerful. It cuts through the center of our heart. It helps us to see the power of God. Are we listening? When we listen to God, we're being changed. Because when we come into God's presence listening to Him, what happens is we see Him as He is, and we see His glory, and we become more like Him. We're typically becoming more like whoever we're listening to. That's just a general truth. Whatever you're listening to the most, that's what you're becoming like the most. Are we listening to God and submitting to him? Finally, the thing we learn about Jesus. That Jesus must die. Verse nine. And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Now, there may be a couple reasons why he doesn't want them to say anything. This could be the normal pattern of the secret Messiah that we've seen throughout the Gospel of Mark, that Jesus wants to be in control of how he is revealed, and it may be related to that. After Peter's answer, he made us say, don't say anything else. Don't misrepresent what happened and what it means, because I'm not quite sure you're ready Don't repeat this until I have risen from the dead. Now, now that shouldn't be startling. That's not new. He just told them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, die and rise again, just, just six days earlier. Verse 10, so they kept the matter to themselves. But they were questioning what, what is this rising from the, from the dead mean? Now, we might have some questions and some issues with the resurrection. How is it that someone would come back to life after three days? That is the most significant miracle that really defines if Christianity is true or not. Is Jesus in a tomb somewhere, or is he risen? And that is the miracle that's really challenged scientists, philosophers, those who were analytical. That's the miracle that's usually most troubling, but disciples or believers in this day would not have had any concern over the resurrection. The Sadducees were kind of the outcast because they denied the resurrection. The resurrection was something everyone knew would take place. I believe what's still plaguing them is the idea that he must die. He must die first. Jesus knowing that they are asking these questions among themselves He asked them why do the scribes say that and that they asked him rather? Why did the scribes say that Elijah must come? Now this may be kind of a an indirect or passive way of of trying to get him to say, you know Elijah He's going to come and restore all things The man has this really strong national change that he's going to take. National change where he's going to overthrow the Roman government. He's going to bring back Israel to the glory of old. Elijah's going to come and everything's restored. Why do they say he's going to come first? And he answers them, Elijah does come first to restore all things. And how is it written, son of man, that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt? Notice there he's focused on the suffering and the death, not the resurrection. But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him. All right, let's just stop here at verse 13. He is simply saying Elijah has come. All right, he's not referring to that moment where Elijah just stood next to him. I believe what he's referring to is John the Baptist, who comes in a Elijah-like character. John the Baptist came to prepare the way. He came and preached the news of repentance and a baptism of repentance. And what did they do to John the Baptist? Chapter 6. He came proclaiming the Word of God, the message of God, and so they beheaded him for entertainment. That is how the world responds to God's good news. If you want to wonder if suffering is a natural, necessary part of living the Christian life, you look to see how they treated Jesus and his disciples and his forerunners. Elijah has come, he says, and they did whatever they pleased. They beheaded him at a party, for fun. Let's go back to the verse before. How was it? It was written. The Son of Man, that is Jesus, he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt." Well, when he says it is written, that means it has been foretold. That means a Moses or an Elijah-like forerunner, predecessor, prophet, promising the Messiah would have spoken of these things. Last week, we looked at one of the most clear passages that shows that the Savior, the anointed one, the Messiah, he must suffer, Isaiah 53. He was pierced for our transgression. The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. If you want to look at another passage that makes it very clear that, that he must suffer, it's, it's Psalm 22. Jesus quotes from Psalm 22 while on the cross. It's actually the psalm of Christ on the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's quite amazing how the cross is the true stumbling block of Christianity. Even for these disciples here, who should know the word of God, who have the master interpreter of the word of God, they're still not getting it. You know, most religions, they really like Jesus as they make him in their own image. They like him as a prophet. You know, Mormons even at least say he's God. He's one of many gods. And he can become a god too if you just follow him and the teachings of Mormonism. One interesting religion that has a high esteem for Jesus is Islam. Islam says he is the one true perfect man. Okay, Muhammad is the final prophet, but Jesus is the perfect man. certain groups of Islam actually believe he's going to be the one who brings about the, the end times. He's going to return. That's a very exalted view of Jesus. But they cannot see a Jesus who died on the cross. They believe Judas died on the cross looking like Jesus. It's amazing how far you have to go to deny the real gospel. Why is the gospel so offensive? Why, why, why would they not want Judas to die on the cross? I believe the cross points to how sinful we are. It points to the consequence and the punishment we deserve. We're that bad. We deserve death. We deserve wrath. It points to how sinful we are. And I believe it also shows how gracious God is. God saves sinners. God saves every kind of sinner. It's hard to grasp that I can't work to earn God's favor, because that takes it out of my control. It's hard for me to grasp that God would save me as a Savior. It's hard for me to believe that God would save those kinds of sinners with His grace. The cross is offensive, because it shows us how sinful we are, and how grace abounds where sin abounds. It shows us how helpless we are. It shows us how fragile, how vulnerable we are. We have nothing we can do. But look to Jesus who died on the cross for our forgiveness and rose again to give us new life. If we fast forward, Jesus says not to speak of this event until after the Son of Man has risen from the dead. Let me read for you Acts 2, the first Christian sermon. I'll just read some sections of it. Fellow Israelites, listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs. That's Mark 2. Which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge. You can see the eyes open right there, right? They could never grasp that God would send his own son to die on the cross, but now we finally see Peter proclaiming to thousands of Jews. It was God's deliberate plan, something he planned ahead of time. This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge. And you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God, raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah. This is a bold proclamation. that embraces that Christ had to suffer for our sin, and He was risen again. That is the gospel truth. If you're not a Christian this morning, my one exhortation to you, listen to Jesus. Open your Bible. Take home with you that Bible, and just read a gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and just listen to what Jesus has to say. Ask Him. Show me yourself, Jesus. There's one thing that's clear throughout Scripture. God wants to be known, and so He reveals Himself. God wants to be heard, and so He speaks. God wants to be loved, so He loves you. Seek Him. Listen to Him. Christian, the main exhortation I have for you, listen to Jesus. posture ourselves towards His Word. And we might hear Him. We never can know enough of God. We can never see Him in all His glory, because we're not yet changed perfectly. Seek Him while He might be found. The fruit of Peter's message, 3,000 people were baptized believing in Jesus. May we have the humility and the desire to listen to Jesus.